Anthony Weiner Admits to Sexting After Leaving Office

At a press conference on Tuesday, New York City mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner admitted that he had continued sexting outside of his marriage after stepping down from his position in Congress in June of 2011, when it became public that he had been in contact with six different women in communications of a sexual nature for three years. The scandal started when he tried to send a private message to one of the women, and instead sent it to his Twitter followers.

The statement was prompted by the publication of pictures and texts between a woman and a user named Carlos Danger on the website TheDirty.com. The site claimed that Carlos Danger is an alias for Weiner, and that the correspondence between him and the woman had started in July of 2012. In addition to the sexually charged photos and texts, the woman has alleged that Carlos Danger had enticed her by offering to give her a condominium in Chicago where they could meet.

Without getting into specifics, Weiner said that “While some things that have been posted today are true and some are not, there is no question that what I did was wrong.” He also expressed surprise that the latest revelations had not become public earlier.

Weiner was accompanied by his wife, Huma Abedin, who is quoted as saying “I love him, I have forgiven him, I believe in him and as we have said from the beginning, we are moving forward.” Weiner also took the opportunity to state that he will not be withdrawing from the mayoral race.

Despite only joining the race in May, in contrast to his rivals, who have been campaigning much longer, Weiner has consistently been in first or second place in the polls. However, he has not garnered any endorsements from congressional members.

In light of the latest allegations, three of his rivals in the mayoral race, the New York chapter of the National Organization for Women, and the editorial board of the New York Times have asked for him to drop out of the race.

It has been speculated that this incident could not only affect Weiner’s own campaign; but also that of Eliot Spitzer, who is running for the position of city comptroller. Spitzer resigned from his post as Governor of New York in March of 2008 over a prostitution scandal. The assumption being that if people lose faith in one candidate who resigned because of a sex scandal, and continued to engage in improper behavior later, they could project their negative opinion of that person onto another candidate that resigned under somewhat similar circumstances.